Immigration levels plan: Canada says intakes in permanent and temporary categories to remain unchanged

Toronto: The new immigration levels plan tabled in Parliament on Thursday by Canada government will leave intakes in both permanent and temporary categories largely unchanged, belying speculation that the numbers were likely to rise.The Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Bloomberg)The annual report to Parliament on immigration noted that the government had a “commitment to sustainable immigration with the need for stability, predictability and economic growth”. Permanent resident or PR admissions will remain the same from 2027 to 2029 – at 380,000 each year, same as that outlined last year. However, given Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ambitious plans for growing Canada’s economy, stress will be placed on the economic stream, which will have 244,700 of the slots available. “As supporting the Canadian economy continues to be a key priority, the economic category remains the largest proportion of admissions each year at 64.4% across all three years,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or IRCC stated in the report.For now, the attention remained on sustainable and stable immigration targets. “By managing immigration with care, purpose, and integrity, we can rebuild public confidence, help newcomers and communities thrive and shape a stronger Canada for generations to come,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Lena Metlege Diab stated in the introduction to the report.In 2025, Indians were the largest country cohort availing of the economic PR opportunity, with 68,085 or 30.2% of all admissions, 225,680, in the category.However, the government is making an additional PR 200,000 slots available as a temporary measure for 2027. Half of them are for workers already in the country awaiting decisions on their PR applications. The other half will be on humanitarian grounds and includes spouses, common-law partners and children of Canadians and permanent residents.Numbers for temporary residents, including international students and workers also remains static. From 2027 to 2029, Canada has accounted for 22,000 worker and 150,000 student arrivals each year, for a total of 370,000. Those were the levels announced last year as well, the first time targets were set in the temporary resident categories. Indians again formed the largest country cohort in both categories.With 94,025 study permits approved, India remained the largest source country in 2025, accounting for 24.6% of all permits, 381,725, that became effective.In 2025, 743,770 people had a work permit become effective for employment purposes. The largest number came from India – 215,250 or 28.9%.Toronto-based immigration lawyer Ravi Jain felt that the PR numbers “were never the problem, it was the massive increase in international students at substandard private colleges and this problem has been rectified (via caps allocated to the provinces who have moved away from these institutions).”While government officials, including Carney, had signalled possible upwards revisions in intake, that did not materialise this year. However, Jain said, “Of course, there is a new levels plan every year so this does not actually bind the Government to this plan for the next three years. I point this out because the Prime Minister told the New York Times two months ago that the government would have a ‘controlled increase’ soon.”